Douglas, William Orville (1898–1980)

US Supreme Court justice and author. He was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Franklin D Roosevelt in 1939, and served an unprecedented 36.5 years on the bench, during which time he was considered a liberal justice.

He was born in Maine, Minnesota, taught corporate law at Columbia University and Yale, and published several business law casebooks before joining the Securities and Exchange Commission. He interpreted the courts' judiciary powers broadly and he vehemently defended civil liberties. He held absolutely to the freedoms espoused in the Bill of Rights, especially that of free speech. Drawing on his many travels, he penned some 30 books, both on legal matters and on nature and conservation. These include Of Men and Mountains (1950), An Almanac of Liberty (1954), Democracy's Manifesto (1962), and A Wilderness Bill of Rights (1965).